Australian law is very sweeping in its provisions about racial vilification. It says: "It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if: (a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and (b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group"

But there is no similar prohibition against religious vilification that I know of. So this complaint is unlikely to go anywhere beyond the bureaucracy.

Even if the Act did apply to religion, it has extensive exemptions. Exempted in Section 18d, for instance, are comments made "in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest".

One would have thought that the above exemption provided a complete defence for conservative columnist Andrew Bolt in the prosecution recently brought against him. That judge Mordechai Bromberg did not accept that defence and proceeded to convict Bolt is thus incomprehensible in terms of what the law says. It can, as far as I can see, be explained only as a political judgement, akin to many of the judgments handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even some Leftists were disturbed by Bromberg's extremism.

Given the pervasive Leftism of diaspora Jews, however, I suppose judge Bromberg's judgment and the accompanying tortured reasoning were to be expected. Jews are heavily represented in the Australian judiciary so I suppose we have to be glad that not many politically-relevant cases come before them. Leftism and law don't seem to go well together.

Epidemiologists are known for their poor grip on logic but this guy beats the band

The Warmist epidemiologist below is perfectly correct that past natural climate changes have been disastrous but the disastrous ones were episodes of COOLING. Periods of warming -- as in the Roman warm period -- were periods of prosperity and civilizational advance. Yet he is trying to make the case that history shows warming to be bad. He must know that history indicates the opposite so I say without hesitation that he is a lying crook of zero credibility on anything. I could go on to dispute more of his patently false claims but what's the point?

A LEADING Australian disease expert says prompt action on climate change is paramount to our survival on Earth. Australian National University Epidemiologist Tony McMichael has conducted an historical study that suggests natural climate change over thousands of years has destabilised civilisations via food shortages, disease and unrest.

"We haven't really grasped the fact that a change in climate presents a quite fundamental threat to the foundations of population health," Prof McMichael said. "These things have happened before in response to fairly modest changes to climate.

"Let's be aware that we really must take early action if we are going to maintain this planet as a liveable habitat for humans."

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Prof McMichael argues the world faces extreme climate change "without precedent" over the past 10,000 years.

"With the exception of a few downward spikes of acute cooling due to massive volcanic eruptions, most of the changes have been within a band of about plus or minus three-quarters of a degree centigrade," he said today.

"Yet we are talking about the likelihood this century of going beyond two degrees centigrade and quite probably, on current trajectory, reaching a global average increase of three to four degrees."

Prof McMichael's paper states that the greatest recurring health risk over past millennia has been from food shortages mostly caused by drying and drought.

Warming also leads to an increase in infectious diseases as a result of better growth conditions for bacteria and the proliferation of mosquitoes.

Drought can also result in greater contact with rodents searching for scarce food supplies.

The ANU academic says while societies today are better equipped to defend themselves physically and technologically, they lack the flexibility smaller groups had in the past. That's partly because the world is now "over populated", according to Prof McMichael, so there are fewer areas available to retreat too.

Populations are also increasingly packed into large cities on coastlines which are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.

Prof McMichael has been examining the impact of climate change on population health for 20 years and says it's not easy to raise awareness of the risk.

"Most of the attention has been of a more limited shorter-term kind relating to things around us like the economy, our property, infrastructure and risks to iconic ecosystems and species."

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's decision to dump the ban on regular unleaded petrol from July 1 has no doubt won him plenty of goodwill from the 750,000 NSW motorists who faced paying an extra $150 a year each for more expensive premium fuel as a result.

But there is also a definite and dangerous downside for the Premier — the impression that if he is put under enough pressure he will fold on difficult issues, regardless of whether he believes in the policy being attacked.

The question being asked today is: are we witnessing the emergence of Backdown Barry?

When O'Farrell spectacularly capitulated on his government's plan to slash the rebate paid to existing customers of the troubled solar bonus scheme last year to address a cost blow out, the decision was in large part put down to the inexperience and nervousness of a new government.

A backbench revolt sparked by the phone calls of angry constituents quickly led to a backdown and NSW electricity users wore the cost.

O'Farrell was quick to blame poor advice from the public service for the original cabinet decision in a bid to neuter the accusation that he was being politically populist at the expense of good policy.

This time around, the Premier has no such scapegoat. The cabinet made its decision to proceed with the regular unleaded petrol ban late last year to enforce the 6 per cent ethanol mandate — whereby oil companies must ensure that 6 per cent of all fuel sold is ethanol. The move was a former Labor government environmental initiative that was also designed to lower petrol prices.

The O'Farrell cabinet fully intended to stick with the petrol ban come July 1, despite knowing it would cost motorists more. It appears there has been no new information made available to the government in the meantime.

In fact, only one thing has changed — the public learning about the extra cost, thanks to a massive leak of cabinet documents last week, which revealed the numerous warnings about the cost to motorists and the possibility that the ban would be unconstitutional.

Like any leader faced with such a situation, O'Farrell had two options: argue the merits of the policy he and his cabinet believe in; or panic and run scared from the fight.

Today's decision gives the strong impression that O'Farrell has chosen the latter course. If so, it is a short term political fix that is likely to cause him long term political damage.

At the very least, the decision will give every one of the hundreds of lobby groups out there heart that if they can stir up the public sufficiently the government is susceptible to wilting under pressure.

It also confirms the view that in NSW politics, just like everywhere else, money talks. Manildra, the monopoly ethanol supplier in NSW, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Labor and the Coalition.

Which leads to perhaps the greatest irony of all about this decision — while O'Farrell has extinguished a political brush fire, his determination to enforce the ethanol mandate is about to ignite a much bigger fight.

The oil companies oppose the mandate and the big question is how — given he has just jettisoned his most effective lever for enforcing it — O'Farrell intends to do that.

Presumably the legislation he has flagged to remove the unleaded ban will need to contain a big stick such as large financial penalties for oil companies who do not comply.

So he will need to stick to a policy that benefits a generous political donor and — due to its capacity to support regional jobs — has a lot of support from the Nationals in the face of a campaign from the powerful and influential big oil companies.

Already the oil companies are accusing O'Farrell of sleight of hand in today's decision — they argue that enforcing the ethanol mandate will give them no option but to turn all regular unleaded into E10 in NSW to achieve the 6 per cent target of all fuel sold.

In other words, despite today's decision, regular unleaded fuel will still disappear from the bowser and those 750,000 motorists whose cars are incompatible with ethanol blends will be forced to pay more for premium fuel. Which was of course the catalyst for the original backdown.

It seems the stage is well and truly set. It will be fascinating to watch how Backdown Barry handles the fight.

It is often said that oppositions don't win elections. Governments lose them. The federal ALP has yet to come to terms with that -- JR

The unintended riot near the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra on Australia Day serves as a reminder that Labor has an obsession with Tony Abbott. Yet an empirical examination of the opinion polls suggests the Opposition Leader is not Labor's essential problem. Rather, the ALP's political difficulties turn on policy - most notably, its action on climate change.

For a glimpse of Labor's state of delusion, look no further than the events at The Lobby restaurant on January 26. On the available evidence, it appears that Tony Hodges, Julia Gillard's press secretary, thought it would be a good idea if some indigenous Australians from the tent embassy confronted Abbott (either verbally or physically) at The Lobby. Why?

As Greg Turnbull, Paul Keating's one-time media adviser, said on ABC News 24 on Sunday, this was a knuckleheaded idea. Abbott would have experienced no political downside had he, alone, been confronted by radical Aborigines from the tent embassy. A smart political judge would have assessed such a scenario as a positive for the Opposition Leader.

Moreover, as is well known, Abbott has a history of supporting indigenous endeavours and has Aboriginal friends and associates. So why did Hodges do what he did? Presumably because he was so obsessed with Abbott that his judgment deserted him. It's much the same with the secretary of Unions ACT, Kim Sattler, who passed the Hodges message to some tent embassy personnel.

Whatever the exact course of the message, it seems that the recipients believed what they wanted to believe.

This is a common psychological phenomenon. The demonstrators, and more besides, thought Abbott was the kind of person who would call for the tent embassy to be demolished. In fact, of course, he did not.

The likes of Hodges and Sattler did not act automatically. For more than two years, members of the inner-city left have been warning that Abbott poses a threat to democracy and civil order. The group consists of educated leftists and social democrats alike and comprises authors, academics, bloggers, commentators, journalists, professionals and public servants.

Their views are evident to anyone who reads the ABC's online publication The Drum or the letters pages of the broadsheet newspapers.

The problem for Labor is that many Australians do not hold this position and support Abbott's social conservatism and economic policies. In August 2010, Abbott scored about as much support as Gillard. Now the Coalition leads Labor by a large margin in the polls. Clearly, the electorate does not regard Abbott as a threat.

And nor do some sensible, left-of-centre commentators who know him. In October last year, publisher Louise Adler wrote that she did not recognise Abbott in Susan Mitchell's attack biography, Tony Abbott: A Man's Man.

Labor's present political discontents stem not primarily from Abbott but, rather, from its commitment to a carbon tax leading to an emissions trading scheme.

Kevin Rudd's problems began when Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull and campaigned against the ETS. This was made clear when Herald journalist Lenore Taylor broke the story in late April 2010 that Labor had temporarily junked its ETS policy. She attributed this decision to "a bid to defuse Tony Abbott's 'great big new tax' attack".

On his blog on The Monthly's website, Robert Manne calls for Rudd to replace Gillard. He writes that "for its first nine months the Gillard government polled respectably" but Gillard's support began to fade in April last year.

True. What's missing is any mention of the fact the Gillard government's support began to fall once the Prime Minister announced, in late February last year, in the presence of the Greens, that Labor would introduce a carbon tax. The combination of a "great big new tax" and a broken election promise has made life difficult for Labor ever since.

The evidence suggests many Labor operatives are in denial about the impact of Rudd's and Gillard's climate change policies on the ALP. On Q&A last March, Lachlan Harris described the carbon tax as "the best decision Julia Gillard has made". The opinion polls, for the moment at least, indicate that Harris is deluded.

It appears that Australians are more concerned with the cost of electricity than with the anti-Catholic sectarianism which fires up much of the inner-city criticism of Abbott, or with the stance the Opposition Leader takes on such issues as Aboriginal advancement, asylum seekers and same-sex marriage.

The next federal election will not be decided on anyone's position on the tent embassy. It is only delusion, fired by obsession, which would lead to any other conclusion.

Negative externalities are when private activities hurt other people. Many economists believe that they should be taxed or penalized

ON JANUARY 21, 1930, in the middle of the world's busiest city, excavation for New York's Empire State Building began. Fourteen months later, on May 1, 1931, the building was officially opened.

At 102 storeys it was for years the world's tallest building. About 21,000 people work there every day. It has a total floor area of 257,211 sq m. It cost, in today's dollars, about $500 million or $1944 per square metre.

In my quiet suburban street there is a house being built that has been under construction since the beginning of October 2009. For 28 months, six days a week, teams of carpenters, concretors and sundry tradesmen have been building a two-storey, detached house. With a floor area of about 200 sq m, it is not a mega-mansion. However, more than $5 million has already been spent on the construction and its completion is still a long way off.

When the house is finally finished, each square metre of floor area will have cost about $27,500 and each day of its construction will have produced a mere 0.9 sq m of floor space.

The house replaced a perfectly adequate brick bungalow, which was demolished and carted away. Then, before construction could even start in earnest, hundreds of cubic metres of sandstone bedrock were jack-hammered out of the site to join the remains of the old house at the tip.

The house's fashionable designer has called up only the best and most expensive materials and fittings and added to its complexity and expense with demanding and esoteric architectural details. Consequently the environmental footprint of the house is massive. Its profligacy is clearly indicated in its square metre cost.

As well, the impact of the protracted construction on the immediate neighbourhood has been much greater than that of a more moderate development. For almost 2½ years, our narrow street has been crowded with tradies' utes. Large mobile-cranes, skip-trucks, concrete mixers, earth-moving trucks and excavators regularly visit the building site and stay for hours. Street closures are common and there have been a number of accidents. Parking is a nightmare and walking can be dangerous.

All this aggravation and environmental degradation has been caused by one person with more money than sense and a designer who has no regard for the environment. What can be done to curb these antisocial endeavours?

How about a profligacy tax on buildings that exceed a certain cost? And why not include a completion date in the development approval and penalise the building owner for every day the work goes over that date?

3 comments:

Paul
said...

I'm starting to think the Canberra riot will be seen as a watershed moment in Australian political history. It certainly demonstrates how dirty political tricks can have unintended consequences, and how blow-back remains a bitch. The biggest question I have is whether a case can be made for there being a dumb leftard political conspiracy that even extends to journalists working for the ABC as the whole thing seems to have turned on a question about the Tent Embassy, irrelevant in context of the event at which it was asked, put to Tony Abbott by an ABC journo. If it was a conspiracy it was pretty stupid, in fact stupidity all round seems the order of the day. Even the smarter Aboriginals (all three of them) at the Tent Embassy have woken up to the fact that they were cynically manipulated. That the Feds don't intend to take this seriously is to be expected from those corrupt bastards. I would however pay lots of money to see Kim Sattler being bundled into the back of a Police truck in handcuffs. I'll be watching this story with greater than usual interest.

Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here

For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.

In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.

Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier

Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".

Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

My son Joe

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".

English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.

Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"? "Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.

Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.

Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall

Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.

The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.

A great little kid

In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."

A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here

About Me

I am a 5'10" tall, jocular former university teacher aged 70 at the time of writing in early 2014 who still has a fair bit of hair. I am Australian born of working class origins and British ancestry. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology (Research Methods) in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. My main interests are blogging, classical music, history, the stockmarket, current affairs and languages. I have been married four times to four fine women with whom I am still on amicable terms. I have one son born in 1987. I am totally non-sporting and have never owned a firearm. My brother has enough guns for the whole family. I did however enjoy my weapons training in the Army.
Fuller biographical notes here